Awaiting a Glimpse of Their ‘Gossip Girl’ Kin

Fans of the Gossip Girl TV series have been congregating all week outside the building in Manhattan where filming has been taking place.

You could tell the tribes apart by variations in dress: the tartan kilts and pleated skirts of Nightingale-Bamford, Sacred Heart and Spence; running shoes on the girls who had made their way over from Chapin and Hewitt; leggings and anoraks for students at Dalton, with its relaxed dress code.

Beyond that, the girls looked a lot alike, particularly when it came to accessories: pendant earrings, orthodontia, camera phones. All this week and part of last, the cast and crew of “Gossip Girl,” the CW network series based on the young adult novels, have been camped out on 93rd Street between Madison and Park Avenues. They are shooting an episode at the grand Georgian complex that in its workaday life houses the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

With a simple application of bronze plaques to the courtyard entrance, it temporarily became the site of St. Jude’s School for Boys. That is the “Gossip Girls” brother school, where earlier this season Dan and Nate fought over who would get to escort the Dartmouth representative around campus during “Ivy week” (Episode 3: “Poison Ivy”).

In any case, the normally tranquil block — Carnegie Hill has many needlepoint shops, boutiques with children’s clothing from France and, of course, private schools — contained a small mob scene of 11- to 15-year-old girls, particularly after 3 p.m. each day, when classes had let out. On Tuesday, they came in groups of four and five, in pairs and alone, and massed on Park Avenue and in front of the church entrance on 93rd Street, waiting to glimpse the show’s principals.

At first blush, it could be difficult to figure out who was in the show and who was merely watching the filming. Where did real life end and fiction begin?

“I totally want to see Chuck,” said 14-year-old Catherine, who appeared to be the ringleader of a group of Sacred Heart eighth graders and who was wary of sharing her full name. She meant Chuck Bass, the young roué played by Ed Westwick.

Katherine Withseidelin and Hollis Alpert, who are in the eighth grade at Chapin, were there early on Tuesday afternoon. “We saw Chuck yesterday,” Miss Withseidelin said.

“Yeah, that was a big deal,” Miss Alpert said. “He sort of was just, like, walking back to his trailer. So we got pictures. This is our third time here.”

A technician in a headset told some girls that shooting was taking place indoors but that in “two to four hours” that could change. “I’m coming back after dinner,” someone said. Most of the girls stuck around.

Photo

Proof: Girls show off photographs of themselves with Gossip Girl actors.Credit
Photographs by Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Three from Hunter College High School, the public magnet school a block away, edged toward the gates of “St. Jude’s.” They said they had been taking all their free periods, plus lunch, here. “Not that we’re obsessed or anything,” Alexa Levy said.

“Do you want to know the honest truth?” Miss Weiss said. “It’s based on private school girls, and they’re very superficial. The woman who wrote the novels said it’s based on Nightingale. We go to Hunter. It doesn’t relate.”

“And I think they’re proud of it instead of being ashamed,” Miss Weiss said.

The techie came back outside. It was time for an exterior shot. “We are rolling,” she said. “Super quiet.” All the girls moved toward the front door.

“The show is a little bit extravagant, but it’s partly true,” Miss Withseidelin said. When she and Miss Alpert were asked if they knew any girls whose lives seemed to mirror the show — or the other way around — there was some whispering. One knew of a girl who had gone to another school and “did some things.”

“She left last year to go to boarding school,” Miss Alpert said.

“When she’s back in town, everybody hears about it,” Miss Withseidelin said. “A lot of texting, because people are having sightings of her.”

The girls from Sacred Heart said they had problems with the show’s depictions of their milieu.

“It’s really unfair, and they make us look brand-obsessed,” Avery Pagan said. She said she had heard it rumored that “each girl on the show is supposed to symbolize a school.”